Page 241 of By His Vow
“Just you and me, baby. Our first night in our home as a married couple.” The smile that follows his words is so genuine and sincere that it makes my heart seize in my chest.
“You don’t need to do that,” I mutter as he pours me a glass of wine.
He pauses and looks back. “You don’t want?—”
“Oh no, I do. I meant you don’t need to pretend that the rings on our fingers change anything between us when we’re alone.”
Wine sloshes ungracefully from the bottle as my words hit him before he puts it back on the counter, taking a moment before he turns his focus back to me.
“No, I guess we don’t,” he mutters almost…sadly.
No more words are said between us as we take a seat at the kitchen counter and fill our plates with his incredible food, although the atmosphere between us is anything but relaxed.
Does he…does he want us to play the part of loving husband and wife, even when we’re in private? And if he does, why? He can’t stand me. Why would he want to put that much effort in?
60
KINGSTON
The tension in the room around us is thick, the fear and anxiety of the people staring back at us palpable.
I get it, I really fucking do.
I wish we didn’t have to do this.
I wish there was a way that we could move Warner Group forward exactly as it is and turn it around with very few changes. But that’s not the position that Jonathan left us in.
The truth of it is that Warner Group is in trouble, and only swift and drastic action is going to save it. That and a massive cash injection from Callahan Enterprises.
Unfortunately, it’s going to mean job losses and reconfiguration.
It’s going to mean a lot of hard work, long days and nights, and a lot of fucking stress. But I have no doubt that it’ll be worth it.
Miles has solid ideas for where he wants to move this company, and I’m right along on that journey with him.
We might finally be under the same umbrella, playing for the same team, but this place will always be Miles’s baby, just like Callahan is mine.
I could insist on swallowing Warner whole and spitting it back out as a newly-born Callahan baby with the flashy branding and all.
But that isn’t Warner. It’s not what its clients want. It’s not the direction they should be moving in.
We’re going to embrace the vision of the Warner men that came before Miles and Jonathan, and while we focus on moving the corporation fully into the twenty-first century and take it places that they never could have imagined, we’re going to keep the integrity.
Warner Group isn’t Callahan Enterprises. Warner Group is our little sister, and we’re going to nurture her to make her own path in life.
Images of Tatum flicker in my mind, but no sooner have they appeared, than I shoot them down.
Now isn’t the time to obsess over my new wife.
Now is the time to focus on her legacy, even if she doesn’t want it.
Over the past few days, I’ve tried to talk to her, to warn her about what’s coming her way, but she’s shot me down every time, claiming that she’s just a manager at Warner Group and should find out what’s happening alongside all the others.
She wants to be an employee, a number.
But Tatum Warner never has been and never will be that insignificant.
This is her company, her future, just as much as it is Miles’s, and I will do anything I can to ensure she benefits from it in the way she deserves.